The company said it had seen strong organic growth following over a dozen acquisitions of Financial Planning and IFA practices in the year. Further acquisitions are likely this year with three already made since the company's year end and a cash pile ready to fund more deals.
For the year ended October 2017 funds under management were up 39% to £2.79 billion (2016: £2.0 billion). Pre-tax profit rose from £2.03m to £3.5m and total staff numbers rose from 239 to 272. The group has 165 financial advisers.
Full year revenues topped £33m for the first time but the cost of sales rose sharply from £10.7m to £15.6m.
The group says it sees significant growth potential due to "increasing organic demand for Financial Planning led wealth management services." AFH said it expected demand for Financial Planning to continue to rise because of legislative changes, including pension freedoms and lifestyle needs.
The company says it is "well positioned" to continue to take advantage of continuing IFA market consolidation as it has a strong balance sheet following a successful £17.5 million share placing in December 2017.
Alan Hudson, group chief executive, said: "The year under review produced our fourth consecutive year of growth and improved profitability since joining AIM in 2014.
He added: "New business and continued demand for financial advice from existing clients, together with a series of earnings accretive acquisitions during the year, enabled the group to grow its funds under management to £2.8bn and increase revenues to £33.6m whilst the efficiencies and economies of scale that we have worked towards generated a further improvement to our EBITDA margin and continues our progress to our three to five year aspirational target."
Apart from further growth, one of the company's aims in the coming year is to reduce investment costs for clients by 'leveraging' the increased size of AFH for their benefit.
During the financial year the group completed 14 acquisitions with a combined value of £18.7m, including two acquisitions with a value in excess of £5m.
In addition to the 13 IFA acquisitions, in June 2017 AFH announced the acquisition of Eunisure Limited, a financial protection broker based in Newmarket, Suffolk. AFH says it believes the protection sector is "underserved" by the financial community.
The company is investing in digital and video services for advisers and clients and has hinted it may target "the wider mass affluent market" more in future.
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